


Comfort and Joy

by Lucyemers



Series: Seasonal [4]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar Drabble, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Drabble Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-09 01:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/pseuds/Lucyemers
Summary: A drabble a day for the holiday season, one for each letter of the alphabet, featuring Robbie, Laura and James in their happily ever after.





	1. Advent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [divingforstones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/gifts), [Complicated light (ComplicatedLight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComplicatedLight/gifts), [perclexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perclexed/gifts).



> Last year I read three glorious fics that made James/Robbie/Laura always and forever my OT3.
> 
> They were:  
> "The Sun Will Rise" by Perclexed  
> "Shadow Passes, Light Remains" by ComplicatedLight  
> "The Surrender of James Hathaway" by Divingforstones
> 
> (If you haven't read them, please do!)
> 
> The last of these three fics was set at Christmas and it made me want to write absurd amounts of holiday fluff with all three of these characters living happily ever after. Thus, these drabbles, most heavily inspired by Divingforstones's fic.  
> I'll be posting one a day through the 26th. They are separate vignettes and not necessarily in any kind of chronological order. 
> 
> Writing one piece for every letter was inspired by fics by Loves_books.
> 
> Many thanks to Greenapricot and Linguini for encouragement and beta reading!  
> All errors are my own!
> 
> Happy Holidays! I hope you take as much joy in reading these tiny fics as I did in writing them! :)

“You could have got one of those chocolate a day things instead,” James said, eyeing the green wreath with five candles.  
“We still could if you’d like,” Robbie replied good-naturedly.  
“You didn’t have to do this for me.”  
“I didn’t. It was Val’s.”  
James considered the candles again, almost wistfully, and wondered which Christmas he had stopped lighting them.  
“I didn’t know she was--”  
“She wasn’t. C of E, actually.”  
“Are you…?”  
“No, but I liked the peace it brought her.”  
“Well...it is the first Sunday. Are you going to light it?”  
“You’re the one with the lighter, lad.”


	2. Baking

Laura washes the flour off her arms and surrenders herself to the sofa. She fits easily between the two of them, her feet in James’s lap, her shoulders and arms, weary from kneading, encircled by Robbie.  
“You smell like cinnamon”, he whispers into her hair.  
“That’s five loaves now”, she sighs. “The station will be set for the rest of the month. Tis the season to try and forget that I’m wrists deep in gore by being wrists deep in baking.”  
“Laura!” Robbie half chuckles, half grimaces.  
“Let her make cake”, James protests lightly, tucking a blanket around her feet.


	3. Chills

Robbie pulls James closer as he starts to shiver, resting his lips on his forehead, checking his temperature.  
“It’s freezing.”   
“No love, you’re burning.” He continues, gently, “Did you get your flu jab like we reminded you months ago?”  
James heaves a sigh of resignation and gives the slightest of head shakes as he burrows closer, eyes drifting closed wearily, but brow still furrowed against the chills saying, “don’t tell Laura.”  
“I think she might guess”, Robbie replies, pulling the blanket around the both of them, attempting to banish his worry, remembering that they live with and love a doctor.


	4. Dance

Laura expects things of Robbie and James. Things like: they will attend the office Christmas party with trepidation--she has to remind them even the day of--things like: they are both prone to occasional insomnia.   
She does not expect Robbie to be the one to join the dancing at said party, guiding her along the floor in an almost formal fashion. Nor does she expect to find him in the living room two nights later, in a rare moment when she’s joined their insomnia, with his arms around James, coaxing him through tentative steps, giving midnight dance lessons with no music.


	5. Evensong

It isn’t full mass, but it’s his first service in years. The two of them are waiting for him at the pub around the corner. He’s one hymn in before exiting, quickly, to a bench in the courtyard, breathing deeply letting the snow fall around him as he smokes and hears the organ through the stone walls, and considers praying here instead, but doesn’t. When he arrives at their table Robbie and Laura take in his snow covered coat and order him a drink, and take turns warming his freezing hands in their own, never mentioning how quickly he’s returned.


	6. Father Christmas

Grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandchildren, but Robbie is unprepared for the box of gifts James produces on Christmas Eve. It has always been his feeling that Christmas is warmer and brighter when a child visits, tucked into bed brimming with anticipation, but he wonders how Laura and James will feel having so many people in the house for the holiday. His worries vanish when he sees James laying out the gifts in perfect formation under the tree, tucking candies and oranges behind branches to be found in the morning by excited hands, his face full of quiet glee.


	7. Good Will

The words surface in his mind in December, the King James translation, of hymns and childhood: “Good will toward men”. With every year that passes, full of death, revenge, suffering, all brought under the microscope of the job for James’s scrutiny, it’s impossible not to hear a mocking undertone to the words. Another year past and what has he seen of good will? And yet...this year it’s lost its sting. The words are dispassionate poetry and he’s a student of literature who has long since sat his exams, sparing a passing smile for a snippet of once treasured verse.


	8. Hearth

Laura won’t replace her fireplace with gas logs. She never minded chopping wood, and now she has two more pairs of hands to help. She loves the way the flames cast shadows dancing across the ceiling when all the other lights are off, and the quiet evenings punctuated by the fire’s pop and hiss. Most of all she loves knowing that if she stands in front of the hearth long enough she’ll be warmed by someone else, broad or angular, who will wrap their arms around her and turn her to face them watching the firelight shine in her eyes.


	9. Ice

In mid December Oxford is hit with an unforgiving ice storm, leaving the landscape bleak and power lines downed. Wrapped in one blanket they light candles, reading until their hands are freezing. After a few glasses of wine, James starts reading aloud from If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller. The fitting choice of reading material makes Laura laugh and the soothing sonorousness of his voice in the otherwise silent house makes Robbie doze off. They make an awkward trio climbing to the bedroom, leading each other through the darkness, and sleep safe from the elements in each others’ arms.


	10. Jolly

Robbie is sitting on the edge of the bed, adjusting the ample padding when he's startled by Laura’s giggles.   
“You said you wouldn't laugh”, he barely contains his own laughter as he says it.   
“I said no such thing.”  
“And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.” James recites.  
“Alright, clever clogs, it's for a very good cause.”  
“It’s for this kind of specialist skill that they dragged you out of retirement”, Laura says with mock seriousness, smoothing down the unruly white beard.   
“I'll need a ride to the charity ball.”  
“I would be honoured”, James teases.


	11. Kindling

The smallest of things, Laura finds, start that soft kindling of heat. It’s James’s precise fingers tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear, the way he lets them linger along her temple. Or Robbie’s fruitless effort to hide the smile that all at once breaks across his face, the sweeter for his amusing attempts to suppress it, when she returns home, James having nodded off against his chest, waking and making softly contented sounds as she comes to join them. So many small, sweet moments that catch and spark within her: the kindling of longing, kindling of love.


	12. Light

The moonlight is different on freshly fallen snow. When the temperature dips below freezing the third night in a row, Robbie carries the heater to the bedroom, cursing Laura’s enthusiasm for tall windows that do nothing to keep the cold out. Even on the most frigid of evenings, James will pop out for a cigarette. Robbie glimpses him in the garden, shivering in the bright, cold moonlight. But after snowfall, he might almost call the moonlight warm. He stands at the bedroom window, the cold creeping in, at odds with the light flooding the room, bathing the bed in warmth.


	13. Mistletoe

Laura doesn’t heed James’s grumbling as he retrieves the plant from the tree’s upper limbs. He places it in her palm, fingers cold with melted snow. “They used to pluck a berry off with each kiss”, she says.  
“And the word”, he replies, squinting into the sunlight. “From the German root ‘mist’ and the old English ‘tan’. Excrement and twig. Reference to the plant’s propagation. Hard to believe you’ve gone hopeless romantic for that.” The smile starting in his eyes flickers teasingly across his lips for a moment before she kisses them.   
“You like the effect well enough.” she replies.


	14. Noel

The litany of scales gives way to Vivaldi, then, as James stirs the hollandaise sauce, coaxing it to the perfect consistency for their new Sunday ritual of eggs benedict, the clarinet breaks into seven notes that has Robbie humming behind the paper, and James joining him before he realizes it. He goes to fetch Laura for breakfast she continues for a moment (“Noel, Noel”) before smiling up at him.  
“Christmas Carols?”  
She rises, follows him to the kitchen.   
“I might have heard someone singing them in the shower last night.”  
He smiles shyly feeling a slight warmth in his cheeks.


	15. Opera

Arriving home, James stops in the living room doorway. The usual sounds of the evening news have been displaced by (it takes him a few minutes to determine) Wagner. Robbie’s installed on the sofa, face pensive, beer in hand, watching the fire and seeming not to have heard the door open. He makes his way to the kitchen where Laura is leisurely cooking. She kisses him, pours him a glass of wine, and he can’t help but remark, “not his usual preference.”  
“He gives it a good listen maybe once a year”, she replies, face wistful. “It was a gift.”


	16. Pine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble is an explicit reference to DivingforStones's The Surrender of James Hathaway, and thus, specifically gifted to her.   
> :)
> 
> I recommend you skip this one if you haven't read that fic (and give yourself the gift of reading it before you read this!)

When they cut the binding around the lower limbs of the tree, carefully placing it in the corner, the room is filled with the scent of pine. And Robbie is immediately and inexplicably filled with joy. He doesn't understand it. He's never been much for Christmas, really. But then he's helping James wrap the lights round the tree, letting his hands linger on his shoulders each time they pass each other in the small space. And when the scent of pine mixes with his cologne, Robbie suddenly remembers it: that first kiss, and pulls him close to recreate the moment.


	17. Questions

The approach of Christmas used to plague them with questions. James would wonder if he could volunteer to work the holiday without arousing Robbie's side long sympathetic glances and questions. Laura would find her mind wandering incessantly to one person and the question that followed, “Robbie. Is he alright?”, knowing how much sharper his loss was at Christmas. Robbie would question himself. Why, when celebrating Christmas with his daughter and grandson, two people he loved so dearly, did his heart keep aching with thoughts of James or Laura. This year, the greatest gift they all receive is a quiet mind.


	18. Rest

The sharp scent (James always makes his too strong) of coffee wakes him. And those long, deft fingers sweeping through his hair. He blinks, hastens to sit. “Shouldn't have slept so long”, he murmurs.   
“The family won't be here for several hours yet”, James replies. Robbie leans back, rests his head on James's shoulder and his mind on his use of the word “the” rather than “your.”  
James keeps his voice low, as if he still fears waking him and says,“The guest room is all sorted.”  
There’s a lingering kiss to his temple and then a soft, “rest, Robert.”


	19. Solstice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for ComplicatedLight who, when I was considering writing winter drabbles last year, requested James happy on the solstice. It's only about a year late. :)

The longest night of the year James stays in the garden well after he’s finished his cigarette. The clouds are heavy with what will be a 2 a.m. snowfall. He sighs, enjoying the contrast of his dark perch in the garden, with the warm glow of the kitchen window, the lit tree beyond. For one year he was looking in on the life that Laura and Robbie had made. He sits luxuriating in the certainty that he can enter the house, the soft awareness that, for the past year, he hasn’t been watching any longer, he’s just been living.


	20. Thaw

“I'm having words with Jean tomorrow.”, Laura remarks as she meets them at the door, helping Robbie out of his coat as James collapses, still bundled onto the sofa, “much too freezing for a stake out in an unheated car!”   
“She’ll agree with you”, Robbie returns, “but this one”, nodding towards James, “very persuasive”.  
“It worked.” James mumbles.   
Laura installs herself between them and soon James is dozing, head in her lap. Robbie is just starting to nod off when she see shifts, worrying over the dying fire. He presses her hand. “Stay, love. You're warm. Just until we thaw.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized after I wrote it that I may have fudged the timeline a bit. I think Moody would have been their boss at the time. But I decided I couldn't resist the implication that Jean and Laura are close enough friends for them to "have words". :)


	21. Understanding

Lewis and Hathaway often went for a pint after a long day, or three after a long case. Little changes now they are Robbie and James. James might turn the details over, the thoughts too troubling to hold back, but they have an understanding. By the time they get to the first, “same again?” they're done with their self doubt, at least in conversation if not in spirit. And, these days, if James still speaks volumes in the set of his jaw or furrow of his brow, there are soft caresses to be received where words would be in vain.


	22. Vast

“They'll be here soon. Tried to look in on dinner but James sent me out.” She knows him too well not to notice the concern he's been trying to hide behind his joy. It's Lynn's first Christmas in Laura's house, their house. And Lynn is very much Robbie's daughter: able to read a situation quicker than most. He leans on the mantle looking at the fire saying, “Do you think she'll be alright with...us?” She rises, wraps her arms around him, “She’s like you.” He peers down at her, confused. “The room she has in her heart. It's vast.”


	23. Weather

In the week leading up to that day in December, Laura and James somehow arrange that one of them is home in the evening at the same time as Robbie. There are no late call outs--the universe gives them that. They strive for a balance between respecting the distance, the air of sadness that settles over him, and drawing him out of it. They take their cues from him of course, but also from one another, though it’s never something they actually discuss. The week passes, the day comes, the year turns on as it always does. They weather it.


	24. X-Ray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> X is a difficult letter. :P

“You want to bring the car round?”  
James raises his eyebrows at her.  
“Severely sprained wrist but not broken.”  
“Don’t know why he insists on clearing the walk. I told him I’d do it.”  
“Mmm…”, she hesitates, “He appreciates it. But it’s hard for him not to hear an implication when you say it.”  
“Ah.”  
“He used to drive over to Morse’s house you know, when it snowed, to shovel his walk. I teased him about it at the time. ‘Too old to be doing that’, he’d say. ‘Going to break his neck’.  
“Or ‘severely sprain’ his wrist?”, James suggests.


	25. Yearning

“Time for bed.” Sleep pulled him under relentlessly just after Robbie made a start on the dishes. He takes Robbie's hand, sits up, runs a hand over his face and blinks at him, brow furrowed, through a haze of sleep.   
“Laura?”  
“Already in bed.”  
They collapse into bed he curls himself into Robbie's arms. It's so familiar, second nature that Robbie is sure he's asleep.  
“What did you do, love?” He whispers. “All those Christmases in the years before you were with us?”   
Silence.  
Then, voice soft, “yearned.”  
“What for?”  
Another pause, then a sigh, light with sleep, “for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!


	26. Zephyr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zephyr: a gentle breeze

Every year, Laura scatters bird seed in her garden. According to Scandinavian tradition, if scattered on Christmas, this promises luck in the new year. Though, she usually forgets until Boxing Day. This year she has company as the gentle, icy breezes spread the seed. Her two loves sit with her in the beautiful morning silence. She watches them, James with a book, Robbie with his paper, absurdly bundled, yet looking as if it's the most normal thing in the world to be sitting on either side of her, giving her their warmth, sipping their coffee while she watches the birds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Thank you for all your kind feedback and for allowing me to indulge in so many small, seasonal moments with these three.


End file.
